Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra giving a keynote speech at the national seminar and launch of Mahapatih on “The Role of Constitutional Law and Election Researchers in 2024 Election,” Wednesday (2/15/2023). Photo by MKRI/Panji.
Wednesday, February 15, 2023 | 21:19 WIB
JAKARTA (MKRI) — Constitutional Justice Saldi Isra delivered a keynote speech at the National Seminar and Launching of the Society of Constitutional Law and Election Researchers (Mahapatih) on Wednesday, February 15, 2023. This event on “The Role of Constitutional Law and Election Researchers in the 2024 Election” was organized online by Mahapatih and attended by constitutional law lecturers, students, and observers from various regions in Indonesia.
Justice Saldi welcomed the launch of the academic community Mahapatih by encouraging it to focus more on researching constitutional law and general elections. As someone who specializes in these two things, he viewed Mahapatih as an essential demand that cannot be ignored since, in the past, not many legal communities had been interested in studying election issues.
“Not many Indonesian constitutional law communities focus on this as experts, so Mahapatih must be welcomed. Why is it not deeply studied by legal communities? One of the reasons is the development of Indonesia’s 1945 Constitution, which—if read carefully and comprehensively—was designed and formed by the founders, does not contain any article or phrase that explicitly mentions elections. It does not explain how to choose members of the DPR, MPR, President, and Vice President in the context of direct elections, except for the provisions for electing legislative members with the most votes,” he explained from his office in the Constitutional Court’s main building in Jakarta.
When talking about the history of the state, he first noted that the elections was actually introduced in the 1950 Constitution. It specifically discussed how to carry out elections, which was materialized in 1955, when the nation elect members of the Constitutional Assembly. However, in the end it was then disbanded, and Indonesia then returned to the 1945 Constitution with the issuance of the Presidential Decree on July 5, 1959 by President Sukarno.
An election was held again in 1971 after the New Order took power. During this period, elections were held more due to the order of the law to elect members of the MPR (People’s Consultative Assembly) or DPR (House of Representatives). The law determined the number of MPR/DPR members to be elected. This lasted until 1999, when the Reform era began. From this journey, Justice Saldi assessed, since the reenactment of the 1945 Constitution in 1959 until the amendment, there was a 40-year period during which the Constitution had not mentioned elections.
“This is also one of the reasons why constitutional law reviews are minimal in Indonesia. Once the Constitution was amended in four stages, only then did the term pemilu (general election) appear. When the 1945 Constitution was amended, the MPR made some basic guidelines for making the Constitution, for example, amending the 1945 Constitution without changing the Preamble, maintaining the presidential system, and amending the Constitution only by addendum,” he explained.
As time went by and with the development of the state, the Constitution resulting from the amendment provides a clear mandate that the executive and legislative are directly elected by the people. Even, Justice Saldi added, the election of the president and vice president is regulated separately in several provisions, which mention how the election process is carried out. The only thing unclear in the Constitution is the election of heads of regions, where [the Constitution] only states that they are elected democratically.
The amended 1945 Constitution, with various terms on elections, impacted the community that study constitutional law. Justice Saldi found that many articles and studies have discussed government systems in depth, especially the presidential system. He believes this happened because the amended Constitution opened up opportunities for this. Therefore, he hoped Mahapatih would continue focusing on all things related to elections.
“Mahapatih is for those who want to delve into election issues, so the real challenge ahead is that studies on elections will never be finished. In addition, while Mahapatih as an institution focuses on election issues, we will not run out of human resources to contribute to all things related to elections, such as revising laws, creating KPU laws, improving oversight design, and so on,” he hoped.
Maintaining Election Quality
Meanwhile, in his speech, Hendra Sudrajat, Mahapatih’s founder and executive director, said that the institution was not separate from the increasingly strategic constitutional law and the filling of many public offices in Indonesia. He also said that Mahapatih was born after realizing the importance of elections as part of the democratic process. The scope of elections, he said, is related to the quality of democracy in the country, because elections are not only about the quantity of implementation or simultaneity, but also the quality of elections in Indonesia.
“The name Mahapatih was inspired by the archipelago narrative. From various studies conducted throughout the country, it was found that in the archipelago era, many constitutions contained historical wisdom values. Therefore, Mahapatih also serves to enrich the legal and election literacy treasure trove in Indonesia,” said Hendra, who received a MURI award as the youngest constitutional law doctor in 2011. (*)
Author : Sri Pujianti
Editor : Lulu Anjarsari P.
Translator : Azzahra Salsabilla/Yuniar Widiastuti (NL)
Translation uploaded on 3/16/2023 15:05 WIB
Disclaimer: The original version of the news is in Indonesian. In case of any differences between the English and the Indonesian versions, the Indonesian version will prevail.
Wednesday, February 15, 2023 | 21:19 WIB 91